


Lieutenant Colonel Slouch-Pants

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-04
Updated: 2007-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheppard's taken to slouching.  Rodney's perplexed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lieutenant Colonel Slouch-Pants

It started when Jeannie caused her ruckus, imagining that exotic particles might bounce back and forth at the behest of her math, forcing John down to the labs to tell Rodney he was needed back on earth. It wasn't the news itself that was odd – god knew, Jeannie had been foisting upheaval on him his whole damn life – it was that John slouched when he delivered the news, stuck out his belly, and Rodney could've sworn he was begging to be touched. He blinked, words failing him, and glanced at John again. 'Belly?' he wanted to say, but satisfied himself with a confused, plaintive grunt, then went off to pack.

But he didn't stop thinking about John's belly for the rest of the day.

Things got busy for a while, what with multiple versions of himself prowling Atlantis and his sister telling obnoxious stories about his youth and his favorite pair of shorts coming back from the laundry tinted pale pink and the vital necessity of staking out the mess for the twenty-four hours there was real chocolate in the cupcakes. Yet through it all, John kept slouching. It wasn't his usual insolent, rage-against-the-Man, fuck-you lean – it was softer, _poutier_ , and it drove Rodney to distraction, preying on his mind when he should have been thinking about energy displacement and his lifetime exposure to damaging radiation and the theoretical implications of tiny vibrations in the structural integrity of every wormhole they dialed to PX7-989. He'd find himself rubbing his own belly, a frustrating, small roundness beneath his shirts, trying to figure out the mystery of Sheppard's posture while typing fractal equations with one finger and berating Kavanagh for his idiocy in emails dispatched back to earth. It made no _sense_ , the sudden looseness in Sheppard's spine, the alluring curve of his body beneath those tight, tight t-shirts – it distracted Rodney from his biceps, for one, which was some kind of crime against god and nature, and it made him want to grab hold of Sheppard in public places and rub his cheek against his stomach, making soft noises deep at the back of his throat. But that way lay disciplinary proceedings and likely humiliation (if, perhaps, a bump in his street-cred when the base discovered he was regularly sleeping with the hottest Lieutenant Colonel in the Pegasus galaxy) so he restrained himself as best he could.

Late one night, after they'd saved the city for the seventeenth time in eleven long days, they lay in bed, drowsy, naked and spent, but with too much adrenaline sparking beneath their skin for either to easily fall asleep. Rodney threaded his fingers through John's messy hair, stared at the ceiling and thought of atom bombs, murmured softly as John rubbed his cheek against his belly's soft curve. It took some time for the gesture to meet the meandering hypotheses drifting at the back of his mind, but when the two collided, he blinked and lifted his head, stared at John who was kissing his belly, raised his eyebrows and blinked again.

"I – "

John looked up, sleepy and flushed from sex. "Mmmmm."

"You like my belly?"

The flush on John's cheeks deepened. "Maybe."

Rodney pushed himself up on his elbows. "That's what this has been about? You like my belly? You want _me_ to like _your_ belly?"

John ducked his head and rubbed his thumb over the jut of Rodney's hip. "It's soft."

"Oh my god – "

"I can nap on it," John explained.

" – you're possessed."

"When you shiver . . . "

Rodney felt his expression soften. "You could've just said. Weeks. _Weeks_ you've been carrying on as if your spine was melting, caving under the pressures of – " he waved a hand " – I don't know, sciatica, pregnancy – "

"Pregnancy?" John looked up at him, disturbed.

"Okay, not actually pregnancy just . . . oh come here," Rodney huffed, pulling him up and kissing him soundly, soothing him pliant with the play of breath and tongue until he could push him onto his back, kiss his way gently down his chest, rub his cheek just below John's navel.

"Oh," John breathed. "Mmmmmmmm." His fingers threaded through Rodney's hair.

"God, you're ridiculous," Rodney said affectionately, kissing his belly, nosing at the hair that trailed provocatively south.

"Yeah," John agreed, sounding drugged by endorphins and satisfaction, even glee.

"Naps, you say?" Rodney asked, rubbing his cheek against John's skin again.

"Hmmm."

"Might have to – " Rodney yawned, nestling against the curve of John's stomach. "Try that."

John grazed his fingertips over the back of Rodney's neck. "Okay," he whispered. And when he shivered as Rodney curved a hand around his hipbone, Rodney understood his fascination, and smiled in his sleep.


End file.
